Part fiction and part documentary, filmmaker Jules Rosskham has created a fascinating hybrid cinema model. It’s a jarring and bizarre mix of mediums that explores real people who deserve to have their stories told and preserved. In the film, an Iranian American trans man named Ahmad (Aden Hakimi) time-travels with the help of a fantastical bathhouse that’s been transformed into an archive of queer experience. He’s on a mission to reveal the daring sexual secrets of his past and to remember the loves and encounters that he’s left behind. It’s an erotic, trans-masc phantasmagoria, a fever dream where he encounters Kieran (Theo Germaine), an archivist of queer memories. Soon, Kieran’s own past and existence become braided into the trans history on display within the more formal documentary segments of the film. [...] [...] The most important facet of the film comes when we are transported back to the late 1980s to witness real footage of trans activist Lou Sullivan, who himself shined a light on the existence of gay trans men when nobody else was. Sullivan was possibly the very first trans man to publically exist as a homosexual, and was responsible for a lot of education and activism surrounding his community. While the entirety of Desire Lines was fascinating to behold, it was the moments I was able to hear and learn directly from Sullivan, who died at 39 from AIDS, that I found to be the most incredible part of this unique journey.

let me tell you a story about how not just gender roles but gender categories are highly culturally specific. in japan, in the 60s, there was a category called 'gayboy'; lots of people self-identified with it. what it meant was an AMAB person who dresses in a feminine way and enacts feminine roles. this can map onto a lot of stuff in other systems of understanding gender; actually, it was a pretty big tent. in the late 60s, a movie came out: half kitchen-sink drama and half documentary, Funeral Parade of Roses was a movie about life in tokyo's queer underground intercut with interviews with the cast and crew, themselves members of the tokyo queer underground, about their experiences of sex, gender, attraction, social roles, journeys of self-identification, and their similarity and differences with their characters. one of the questions that was asked, of many people, was 'why are you a gayboy?' the answers fell across a familiar spectrum, and again there's this temptation to place it on our own maps, which are ours because we prefer them and vice versa. for instance: 'i like being a girl', 'i like acting like a girl but only because i'm not a girl', 'i was bad at being a boy, and i found out that i'm naturally better at being a girl', 'i'm not exactly either a boy or girl', 'i'm a boy, this dress is just a fashion statement', 'i am not a gayboy, i am a traditional conservative woman with a birth defect'. now, the editor of japan's first gay magazine wrote a review of The Funeral Parade of Roses that took on a revolutionary tone, and afterward, the term gayboy fell out of favor and instead people refered to themselves as 'the rose tribe' -- as in, anyone who ever identified with something they saw in The Funeral Parade of Roses. the magazine pivoted to be the premire publication of the rose tribe, broadening its audience, but the old guard and the majority were gay men. in response to reader mail about gay male content crowding other stuff out of limited page space, the editor created a specific section called 'the lily tribe', which got guaranteed page space and was exclusive to femme-leaning content (while masc- and neutral- content could predominate elsewhere). this did not necessarily mean that the occasional lesbian or transfem article wouldn't make its way into the main body of the magazine if it was deemed of wide enough interest. the rose / lily categorization system seems to have remained the baseline in japan for a while (my direct knowledge of this part is very limited). today, our categories are more global and intersecting: anime will intentionally place trans flags or use bisexual lighting.

ABOUT ME POST

They/Them, He/Him, neo-pronouns, anything but She/Her

Name•s you can call me : Space, Spiderz, Nat•s, Merry

Unlabelled queer (I usually just say I'm gay most of the time and don't bother explaining what I'm into, but I'm not questioning either)/ Trans masc (meh), Neurodivergent, AuDHD (probably, I don't konw), ENFP (whatever that means), libra (whatever that means #2), tomato soup enthusiast

Special Interest : DC Comics (if you say anything bad about Loïs Lane, I might explode, Openheimer style), Space (I mean, duh), weird but religions kinda obsessed me for the biggest part of my life (I'm not very religious tho, and every religions interests me in the same way, so I guess it's just a special interest more than a religious trauma but idk)

(Current) Hyperfixations : Good Omens, aquarium enthusiast (in an autistic way), Entomology (Like, you can put me in front of documentaries all today and I would forget to eat and I might cry if you kill a bug), Fantastic creatures (currently, vampires and mer-people), The Cellar Letters, The Magnus Archives, but especially The Cellar Letters

Casual enjoyer of fantasy romance, sci-fi, very much into Neil Gaiman's works

Hobbies : sewing, drawing, reading, writing, music (both making and listening to), sports, feminine soccer/football, watching TV (idk if that counts as a hobbie, I just binge watch shows as a copying mechanism)

This is my favourite æsthetic :

And that's all 🩵

oda headacanons masterlist 

not a mandarin-speaker; maybe hokkien/a wu dialect (ik my friend likes toying with him being wenzhouese) ? regardless his mandarin is shit but he can understand it well enough to get by⁰*

the other guys in the bats speak in similar dialects, they all met through the previous gang they were in, but most of them are considerably better at mandarin than he is

got around to understanding mandarin mostly from work/life experience

tachibana and oda usually speak to each other in japanese, or tachibana will say something in mandarin and oda will respond in japanese

he got to the name “jun oda” because it’s a translation/transliteration of his chinese name

“oda” coincidentally had characters that sound like “weitian”, which in his case is spelled differently (尾田 is a common japanese surname but reads like a japanese name in the same way “pierre” reads like a french name)

also got to “jun” because it sounds like “chen”. his surname (he uses 純 for jun which is “chun” in chinese, chen>chun>jun?)

realistically i’m pretty sure this is just writers deciding on a japanese name before a chinese one and choosing common japanese names for him

generally an insecure person with a tendency to compensate

tachibana has [slightly] more chest hair than him and he’s insecure about it

also has trouble growing facial hair, he can keep his stubble for months w/o it changing much

considers himself to be short despite being like 6′ something because he’s seen a few guys taller than him like once

consistently worries tachibana will stop liking [slash loving] him someday despite the fact that he literally lost his arm to save his life. this got a lot worse after the documentary

tachibana is not very expressive/showing of affections in the way oda is and oda still isn’t 100% used to it

“city boy” who grew up in bad conditions & with abusive/neglectful parents which more or less gave him an easy transition into involvement w/ gangs 

not necessarily a headcanon but he gives me only child vibes in the “your mom died giving birth to you” sort of way

i feel like the attitude he has towards tachibana of “putting him on a pedestal” (for lack of a better term) speaks to some sort of difficulty in thinking about relationships in a non-conditional way

i also think he has this relationship w/ his past, see below

came to japan before 1976 (he was a stowaway, so...) at 17/18

open about his past up to a certain point (and especially not after the documentary). leaves gaps that sometimes tachibana can find out on his own and other times are ominously absent, very contrary to tachibana being 100% open w/ him (& the other bats)

(cw sex trafficking/sexual assault ??? )  the way both he and makoto phrased it makes it sound like it was a deal where he was tasked with finding women & sending them somewhere specific (to put it lightly), sort of a middleman? since he was involved w/ gangs it makes the most sense to me

(cw 2) i’m undecided about whether he continued trafficking with the bats

he absolutely feels remorse for what he did, especially after meeting tachibana, and even moreso after the documentary

i think it was in a similar sort of step to tachibana in that he was repressing the remorse/trying not to think about it but after the documentary he couldn’t ignore it anymore

in our modern lgbt parlance he would be considered “bi”, but if you asked him he would be very confused because he doesn’t think about stuff like that very much. have not decided if i think he’s trans or not yet

was masc 4 masc in the strict proto-instagram gay “hunks only” way before meeting tachibana. his type for women is similarly gendered (big tits long hair etc) but that hasn’t really changed

(if cis) whenever he found tachibana was trans he had the normal cis person questions but it didn’t really shock him too much bc he’d seen and slept with trans women before. ultimately it didn’t affect the way he viewed tachibana, and it’s not like he would reject tachibana in any way for any reason lol

sex wise he and tachibana switch but tachibana is the more “dominant” one with a bad habit (which started mainly when oda started being more distant) of giving into what oda wants bc he likes keeping him close 

like how tachibana isn’t expressive he is also silent during sex. like not a peep. he has to consciously think of things to say. oda isn’t 100% used to that either

not neurotypical. idk how but he isn’t

some sort of writing/speech/language-related learning disability? (dyslexia?)

uh misc

black and white thinker. not introspective at all. nothing is “maybe” with this guy. arguably canon

and tachibana isn’t and his clothes are black and white and oda’s are colorful and

scared of thunder***

the way he dressed seems to me like the equivalent of someone with only 80s clothing at their disposal trying to dress in a 70s fashion. may be inspired by older movies/stars? 

color and pattern-matching tended to not get too out of hand for more mainstream/trendy stuff but was a little more bold-colored and tastefully mismatched in the 70s

if only he’d lived seven more years...

big big big versace guy. if not versace then versace-esque clothes. loves that 80s color-blocking patterns thing

annoying to go to the movies with because he talks the whole way through and asks questions that could be answered by just watching the movie

got a woman pregnant once at a one night stand. not paying child support or anything like that. no interest in being involved in the child’s life at all***

tachibana knows (oda never told him, he found out on his own) and is ambivalent about it

⁰ - i’m not fluent and can only know stuff through looking it up so please correct me if anything is wrong/weird. for the name thing most of these are based off of mandarin pronunciations so it could be off base

* - taken from chinese fans & friends

*** - taken from fics i read on pixiv

hello! id like to submit an entry for the twisted wonderland match up! :-)

about me;

- im gay + trans masc

- interests and hobbies; haute couture + avant garde fashion shows, alternative fashion (vkei, scemo, goth..), drawing, painting, clothes-making, embroidery, reading, writing, politics, philosophy and ethics, jewelery-making, films, papercraft, sculpting, any artistic hobby under the sun you bet my ass would do

- personality;

- i'm shy and keep to myself in most situations, but i can be charismatic and funny around trusted friends. i like making new friends and getting to know people; i admire outgoing and passionate people the most.

- i'm emotionally self-aware (i pride myself the most with this)-- i understand myself very well, so i can communicate pretty clearly with others.

- i avoid judging people for trivial matters. we are all cringe and we are FREE!!

- i'm non-tolerant of bigoted beliefs and unafraid to confront them. my moral compass is pretty strong?

- i'm always striving to be the best version of myself, though i do have some very deep-rooted insecurities about myself at all times.

- i'm dedicated and hardworking when focused on something i care about, but i struggle with my attention span.

- i'm patient and hard to anger, but easily irritated.

- i like learning new things! so i like listening to people talk a bout obscure and niche things.

- i really. really like people. i like the sounds of people and the love people share and the fun they have and how different they are. they're very interesting and i like discussing deeper topics with them, but this makes me rather awkward in new friendships because i just get right down into the nitty gritty of it :[

appearance;

- im 5'7, pale, dark-haired (i have a mullet. a wolfcut?? with an undercut. biblically accurate haircut). im pretty neutral with my appearance but i like my pear figure!

- i have high cheekbones, a square jaw, double lid eyes, a high nosebridge, and my lips have no cupids bow. i take pretty good care of my lip skin tho so i have that going on for me lmfao

trivia;

- im horribly and horrendously picky with my food i would NAWT survive in the wild

- my natural sleep schedule consists of sleeping at 10 am and waking up at 6pm

- i like watching analysis videos/video essays, documentaries, studies, etc etc but my memory is worse than the most arthritis ridden goldfish so i dont retain it either way

thank you for your time!

ahahaha i missed a few things to add for my match up request! my bad! my og request states i am mlm trans masc; im the 5'6 guy. i would like a romantic match up, and i believe ive already some of my positive traits, but for a comprehensive list;

- positive traits

1. compassionate/considerate/understanding

2. patient

3. earnest

4. witty/humorous

5. honest/open with my emotions and thoughts

6. pragmatic romantic

7. curious

8. hardworking/competent

9. self-reflective

- negative traits

1. flighty? (i tend to disappear off the face of the earth and not tell anyone)

2. jealous

3. impulsive

4. insecure

5. disorganized

6. perfectionist

7. rigid (to change in structures-- i need it to function or ill become extremely stressed)

8. forgetful

(2/2)

~~~~

Hey, Devin here!

Unfortunately, I can't do this request because it went over my word limit. I checked your first message to my inbox and it's already over 400 words. If you want a request done, make sure you adhere to any limitations that I have specified in my rules.

If you're still interested, please rewrite or subtract things so that it will be within limit.

If you have any more questions, refer to my pinned post for more of my matchup rules.

Thank you and I hope that you have a wonderful day.

its weird to think about my identity if i wasn’t trans, especiall re: the recent rthko “born this way” post. there’s an idea i’ve been chewing on for a while about the formation of gender identity in adolescence almost necessarily being independent from sex/attraction. like i was a “tomgirl” or “girl-adjacent” very early on and there was no reason for it besides just friendships and expression at the time. i also distinctly remember there being an odd period where i felt that my attraction to women was somehow illicit. This is in the sense that I felt i could only express attraction to men (real or imagined) in order to maintain the privileged position of being “in” with my female friends. This even lead to unexamined resentment of my openly gay-male classmates! To me, it seemed like they were taking the few available GBF roles and leaving me out on the sidelines by upping the ante on male feminine presentation to a level i didnt feel safe going to. to my original point, my weird ass was confused that access to female friendship suddenly required me to be attracted to men.

i mean im still bi for the most part but before trans-stuff my plan was to marry a woman eventually. my last relationship felt comfortably far from gender roles and so i wasn’t too upset by feeling pressure to be “the man” but i’m still left with the question of how to actually frame this. i guess my uncomfortability is with how oppositional it all is/was? like my man-gender was defined pretty much by waiting to hear some guy call something faggy or tell someone to “not be fucking gay” and then do whatever they were calling gay. and thats not very satisfying. in fact its definitely masochistic to get off on drawing men to anger and rage by my gender presentation.

perhaps this is a symptom of modern acceptance compared to the “old days”. i think many “oppressed peoples” can have the response to microagressions that seeks to embarrass the aggressor into saying something socially unacceptable. Part of me was so happy when my roommate called me a faggot like YES say it with ur chest bitch let it all out lets throw down.

what makes me optimistic is the ongoing decoupling of gay (gender deviance) and gay (homosexual) in social culture. as always thank u lesbians (black lesbians esp) for the beautiful world of studs and butches who push this forward more than anyone. I guess in the modern discourse i dont have much besides sheer joy/happiness at the general phenomena of femboy bfs and girls pining for a gay husband. i get bristling at the types of labels being used to describe it but i also think it will always be messy. unironically i just want fem straight men and masc straight women and maybe they get married and i dont care what they call themselves while doing it. i’ve known many straight men with ‘gay’ mannerisms and interests and i want them to be as happy and loved as possible

actually i think everything i want to say about this has already been said in the “gay voice” documentary.

pls tell me ur thoughts i did not proofread this and might delete tomorrow lol

WGSS LISTICLE 1. This class opened my eyes to see how complex intersectionality really is.

For example I did not know that Black women face more issues than Black men Because men get more respect and received their rights before women did. Black women have a “Specific economic situation” that applies to them and only them. For example, one of my closest friends is from Nigeria, she explained to me that Black Lives Matter movement infuriates her sometimes because they leave out Black people that are part of the LGBTQ+ community and women. She said that she feels like she has to constantly fight to get people to hear her out and Black women’s struggles, meanwhile Black women are always fighting for Black men but Black men do not fight the same way for Black women.There’s more on this in this article https://isreview.org/issue/91/black-feminism-and-intersectionality/index.html

2. Disabilities do not mean a person is any less valid than an abled person, and we need more advocation for the progression of help for disabled people. 

I did not notice how many businesses do not have ramps in front of their stores or elevators in their buildings and how ignorant this is towards the disabled community. The infrastructure in the United States is lacking and needs to take in to consideration the daily life of someone that is not able bodied. You can read more about this here https://medium.com/iced-facility/disability-inclusive-infrastructure-opportunities-and-challenges-7667be05fa1b .

3.Gay rights go way back to the Civil rights movement.

I did not know that the gay revolution has its roots in the civil rights movement because we learned how to organize marches and meet up tp discuss ways to speak up about gay issues and how to force people to hear these issues. You can read more about it here https://www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/history-of-gay-rights .

4. You can be transgender and still have the anatomy you had before you came out about what gender you are, gender confirming surgeries are not needed.

I did not know that you are still fully valid even without top/bottom surgery and this class helped me understand that trans does not mean that you have to identify with a gender either you can be trans masc or trans femme and I love that because it does not put you in a box. See more here https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/gender-affirmation-do-i-need-surgery

5. The history of slaves in the United States is A LOT more dark than we were taught in school

Reading on P.T. Barnum and the atrocities he would do to the slaves he owned and how he would casually constantly assault Black women and then send them to the doctor because he would cause them to bleed for days nonstop but he only sent them to seek help because it was affecting his work is beyond sickening and infuriates me to my core. Read more about the truth of P.T. Barnum here https://face2faceafrica.com/article/p-t-barnum-the-truth-about-how-the-greatest-showman-on-earth-used-an-elderly-slave-to-launch-his-career.

6. Fat shaming IS a queer issue and we need to do more as a community to stand up against it.

It is important to note that there’s a lot of ED’s in the queer community and we should all be more open about what we are going through and understand that it is okay to have a belly. Watching the VICE documentary in class about the empowering fat camp made me shed a tear because it showed that women can empower women without commenting on their diet/weight. Read more about it here https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/sized-up-fat-feminist-queer-disability.

7. Prison systems in the United States are both degrading and dehumanizing 

Reading about the testimonies from women that were incarcerated broke my heart especially when they described what “internal searching” was and how it made them feel like their rights had been stripped.  Read more about it in Angela Y Davis’ book, “Are Prisons Obsolete?”

8. You can still be homophobic even if you are in the LGBTQ+ community

Yes you read that right, for example you cannot use the F slur if you do not identify as a gay male. Also Lesbians invalidate bisexual women a lot claiming that they are straight if they are currently in a relationship with a male thus invalidating their sexuality. https://www.rainbow-project.org/internalised-homophobia/

9. Men can be feminists and their help is definitely needed

Before this class I will admit I was part of the I hate all men group of women because of past experiences I had with them. However it is important for men to help us speak up on injustices towards women especially considering that their point will be heard over ours when the audience is full of white men.

https://awomensthing.org/blog/why-all-men-should-be-feminists-robert-franken/

10. Women are freaking awesome.

Overall this class helped me see all the struggles I go through daily as a woman that men do not go through. Things that i was starting to consider normal and was not acknowledging how strong we really are. I have conquered an ED and have accepted my sexuality and I am strong. We need more models to look up to that acknowledge the fact that women are strong to empower and encourage other women to see how important they are. https://aninjusticemag.com/female-superheroes-arent-just-important-for-young-girls-fbbd94fdbfa7

it is so fucking hard being such a feminine trans man who has no idea how to be even slightly manly because im a flaming faggot and i grew up with no male influence like no dad no brothers and i was around my grandpa a bit but he’s not masculine at all, he taught me how to knit. and i love being feminine and i love who i am, being manly isn’t who i am. but masculine trans men pass and my flamboyant ass could never. even if i was born a man i would be so flamboyant and id still wear makeup and feminine clothing and pink but its so hard being so fucking girly and being a trans man because no one sees me as a man and i just fucking had my 2 years on t and i still look so men. maybe if i had grown up with a dad and brothers and i’d be masc. ill never be that completely other person but i was watching this documentary “do i sound gay?” that talked about how the environment u grow up in shapes u so much so like men who grey up around women tend to sound more gay than men who grew up playing sports with 3 brothers and like. damn if i could just be masculine maybe i could pass but its not who i am. being a feminine trans man is too fucking hard 

New pieces and an interview with Transinspired Media!

Good afternoon!

Firstly, I did an interview earlier this week with Transpired Media, and it's out now.

Transpired Media is a new media and news collective whose goal it is to directly centre trans narratives and trans voices, and they're just getting off the ground right now. You should check them out and given them a follow on YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr.

For media recs, I enjoyed A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985) this week, as well as the related documentary, Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street (2019) starring Mark Patton, who played the protagonist in Freddy's Revenge.

I've written an updated list of movie recs building on the big MLM rec list I did a few years ago, and there's like 70-something films and TV series linked on the list, so it might be nice to have a glance through!

More gay (or bi) dudes in movies! is on Medium and also on Patreon, and there's a list to peruse on Letterboxd for ease of checking off films you've seen and not!

April's Top Story: Slime Breeder

Erotic short. An elf is used as a distraction as his party fight a gigantic slime.

3.5k. Rated E. A trans masc elf getting fucked from all ends by a giant slime creature, used as a seedbed by it, then played with by his variously gendered friends in the aftermath.

Mildly to very dubious consent here, but Sam is absolutely enjoying himself by the end of it - featuring a giant slime monster, aphrodisiacs, tentacle sex, encasement, choking, oviposition and egg-laying, cumflation, overstimulation, anal, oral, and vaginal penetration, objectification, lactation, milking. All that fun and beastly stuff!

On Medium / / On Patreon

New Works Published

Romance Short: Funny Thing

A quartermaster is driven mad by the carpenter’s nephew.

1.3k, short and sweet! Rated M, adapted from a TweetFic. Light-hearted age gap with pirates.

On Medium / / On Patreon

Fiction Short: Prices Paid

A man possessed by myriad demons greets his on-and-off lover.

1.4k, M/M. Asmodeus and Hamish MacKinnon! Just a short, sharp little piece between two sad, sharp men. Adapted from a TweetFic.

On Medium / / On Patreon

Film Essay: The Straight Male Gaze on Pretty Male Gays

How does it feel when straight men want to fuck us?

A quick little intro — I went ham on this one. I watched A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge and it just gave me a lot of feelings.

Warnings throughout this piece for discussion of the film’s gore and violence, the homophobia both in- and out- of universe, sexual violence, homophobia in general. I use a lot of slurs in this one because I self-identify with a lot of them, and a lot of this piece is about the ways in which queer identity is weaponised and not weaponised against us.

Bon appetit.

On Medium / / On Patreon

Romance Short: Tailor's Hands

A newly out man falls for a local tailor.

3k, M/M, rated M. Sweet and short, some bantering back and forth, some shyness and sillinness, some cute cats! Featuring Pothos Hearn. Adapted from a TweetFic.

On Medium / / On Patreon